A
scanned copy. Done on a non-word processor, called a typewriter, I believe.
Some of the spelling is original, even if it appears wrong. The name Elliott
has two tt's even though it often has only one t. The figures are left
out at his time but as this is a City document a copy is in the Central
library, in the Canadiana Reading Room 615-3524 - code 971.3535.PHI
A HISTORY
OF THE CAWTHRA-ELLIOTT ESTATE
By Ken Phipps, LACAC student, September
1989
GRACE CAWTHRA-ELLIOTT - The second
haft;
That was in 1964. Two years later
Mildred Brock died and wrote no more; and the Smouters moved into the gate-house.
Al Smouter is a policeman who was then willing to double as a groundskeeper
and Grace was only too happy to finally have the law stationed on the premises.
When the Smouters moved into the gate-house it was infested with huge woodspiders
and ants, so they had to fumigate it. As well, their first cold winter
night there was almost their last; years of disuse had clogged the chimney
with dead leaves, and the smoke from the fire that warmed them almost killed
them in their sleep. It didn't, however, and they managed-to have four
children in that gate-house before Grace died in 1974 and, with the fifth
child on the way, they moved into the main house. This fifth child would
have made the gate-house intolerably cramped. They named this child Jennifer
Grace, after the woman who had to a large extent dominated their lives
for the previous eight years, and in the end Jennifer was the reason they
had to leave the estate. She had asthma, and the dusts and molds and pollen
in the air made the estate unendurable--ironic, since in a way the former
owner's name was carried on while the girl was there.
Probably when the Smouters first
arrived in 1966 they didn't think they would ever name a child after Grace
Cawthra-Elliott. The groundskeeper before Al Smouter, Patrick Heffernan,
in detailing the work the groundskeeping involved, also told Al why he
was leaving. Patrick said that the old woman expected her servants to be
on her property and at her service at all times; she didn't pay them to
leave her [46]. And Al found that this was true. Grace strenuously objected
when Al or his family left the estate, even for a weekend or a night out.
As well, Al found that his job entailed much more than groundskeeping.
When he first saw the house, the
interior was, of course, four inches deep in dust. Eleven cats were living
in the basement on rats and other smaller inhabitants. Grace and Liz each
had a feline fetish, but neither of them cared for the cats in a practical
way. The cats were filthy, flea-bitten and diseased. Excrement littered
the basement. Al cleaned it out and spray-painted everything.
And Liz, once a functioning servant,
was at that point a mere fixture. She had been taking angina pills for
ten years when Al arrived and five years later she had a heart attack and
died. During those first five years she had an increasingly difficult time
moving around. She still attempted to satisfy Bee's every whim, but, debilitated
as she was, she couldn't. She also insisted on continuing to live in the
attic, despite the long narrow flight of stairs she had to climb to get
to it. In her last years Al had to carry her, swollen and sickly, up and
down those stairs. In those years Al had to look after both women. Liz
and Grace always ate separately, carefully maintaining a formal servant-mistress
relationship, but Grace would not accept Elizabeth's death until long after
it had occurred.
Because of Elizabeth's accelerating
rate of decay, Grace had a housekeeper named Rosina Bellas come in twice
a week. Possibly this was the same extra help Mildred referred to in her
1964 description of the estate. What this housekeeper actually did is difficult
to determine, given Grace's wish that nothing be moved or cleaned.
Grace also acquired a full-time nurse.
Her name was Rita Calder, and before Al began to police the scene she apparently
had been having Grace pay for food and various articles Grace didn't need
or even use. Rita continued her attempts to extract every fringe benefit
she could despite Al's watchful eye, and even tried to remain on the estate
after Grace had gone and the ostensible reason for Rita's presence had
gone with her [47].
By the end of the first year the
Smouters spent on the estate, Bee had had a stroke and was bedridden and
totally blind. She stayed this way until she died. Rita's suspicious behaviour,
combined with Bee's new vulnerability, spawned a paranoia in Bee which
reinforced Bee's already miserly attitude. When Al needed a chainsaw to
clear away brush and trim trees, he almost had to buy it himself; she wanted
him to use a hatchet. (This may have been, too, because she was suspicious
of what he intended doing with the chainsaw; she didn't want him cutting
the trees on the property down, as she insisted they were being saved for
her majesty's ships.) Al didn't know how much money Bee had, but he had
seen numerous cheques for large sums from Consumers' Gas and Honeydew products;
she was obviously rich, but she refused to spend a cent on the upkeep of
the estate. But this was more than paranoia; she was trying to ignore the
decay she couldn't see around her but could feel inside her.
With her blindness and immobility
came fear and dependence on the Smouters, particularly Al. Al tried calling
her Gracie, and soon she became offended if he called her anything else.
He played "Pirates of Penzance" by Gilbert & Sullivan for her on his
portable tape-recorder over and over again. Neither did she tire of CFRB
1010 and "Starlight Serenade". Al would put the music on, leave to perform
some chore, and return to find Bee clutching the sides of her bed with
white knuckles, her eyes clamped shut and her body stiff in rapt concentration.
As the years progressed Al and Bee
became as close as a servant and a mistress could become; and after Liz
was gone they both felt as if Al had replaced her. At times Grace seemed
desperate and afraid and Al had to hold her hand and listen silently while
she told stories of the Cawthras he had heard countless times before. At
times she was desperate and angry; she stopped talking and eating and would
let no one near her [48].
She tried to get Latham Burns, the
son of her brother Victor's daughter "Tootsie", to change his name to Cawthra;
she tried to bribe him with the promise of sole inheritance but he refused
to comply. Latham was the only relative she was interested in making her
heir. When he declined her offer she decided that she wasn't going to die.
She would not write a will and would not talk about death or the possibility
of death. Instead she tried harder to live in the past, perhaps believing
that if it didn't die then she wouldn't either.
Tony Adamson, who Bee used to telephone
late at night in order to recount stories of the Cawthra family, says that
even if Bee had written a will, it would have been declared unbalanced.
Tony would have testified to her insanity in court. Tony believes that
his mother was the only one of the Cawthras that wasn't insane [49].
When Grace Millicent Kennaway Cawthra-Elliott
died on October 22 1974 she was 96 years old. She had expressed a wish
that she be buried with her husband, but this wish could not be confirmed
in-writing as she had left no will. Apparently however there was no room
for her among her ancestors, so she was buried in the Dixie Presbyterian
cemetery at Cawthra and Dundas with the major-general anyway. On Harry's
side of the large tombstone they share are inscribed the words, "Lord thou
hast been our refuge from one generation to another."
After her death the vault in the
basement of Cawthra-Lotten was opened and was found to be filled with sterling
silver. These old family pieces were divided among Bee's relatives, who
reportedly sold them. Much of her furniture was auctioned off, but the
Smouters made up a small list of items in which they were interested, and
Cassels & Brock, Bee's law firm, managed to procure most of these items
for them. The Smouters still have these items and would be willing to give
them up if they were going to be used as part of a restoration effort and
if the City was willing to replace them.
The inheritance was divided three
ways: one part went to each of Bee's sister Lena's two sons, Henry Francis
Cawthra Burnham and Eric Gilchrist Burnham, both of whom are now dead;
and the third part went to the great-nephew she had attempted to bribe,
Latham Burns, who can be contacted through Burns-Fry Limited, located at
1 First Canadian Place, Toronto.
Perhaps because of Bee's bold declaration
that she would never die, the rumour has spread that her ghost haunts the
Cawthra-Elliott estate. Pat Porter, who lived in the house after the Smouters
moved out, said she felt Bee's presence strongest in the attic [50].
But if a ghost does roam the corridors
of the Cawthra-Elliott house, chances are it is not simply the ghost of
Grace. As Grace spent most of her life and certainly her final days looking
at the world through the eyes of her ancestors , she became less an individual
and more an embodiment of all of those ancestors. If a ghost does wail
through the halls of Cawthra-Lotten in the pale moonlight, it is the ghost
of every Cawthra that ever set foot on Canadian soil.
ENDNOTES
[22]
The Loyalist Gazette, Autumn 1971,
6.
[23]
A. Maude (Cawthra) Brock, ed., Past
and Present: Notes by Henry Cawthra (Toronto: James and Williams, 1924),
47.
[24]
Biographical record, County of York,
1907, 2.
[25]
Ibid.
[26]
Mildred C. Brock, Then and Now--Excerpts
from-the Life of Grace Elliott. U.E.L. (Toronto: Jan. 1964), 4.
[27]
Personal Communication with Mr.
A. Smouter, July 1989.
[28]
Mildred C. Brock, 4.
[29]
Ibid.
[30]
A. Maude Brock, 4-3.
[31]
Personal Communication with Mr.
A. Smouter, July 1989.
[32]
Personal Communication with Mr.
A. Adamson, July 1989.
[33]
Personal Communication with Mr.
A. Smouter, July 1989.
[34]
Mildred C. Brock, 6.
[35]
Ibid.
[36]
Letter received by Cassels, Brock
and Kelley from Mrs. Cawthra-Elliott, 18 March 1931.
[37]
Personal Communication with Mr.
A. Adamson, July 1989.
[38]
Ibid.
[39]
Mildred C. Brock, 10.
[40]
Personal Communication with Mr.
A. Adamson, July 1989.
[41]
Port Credit Weekly, 17 July 1947,
1.
[42]
Personal Communication with Mr.
A. Smouter, July 1989.
[43]
Personal Communication with Mr.
D. Delworth, 7 Sept. 1989.
[44]
Personal Communication with Mr.
Mark Warrack, L.A.C.A.C. Coordinator, City of Mississauga, August 1989.
[45]
Mildred C. Brock, 8.
[46]
Personal Communication with Mr.
A. Smouter, July 1989.
[47]
Ibid.
[48]
Ibid.
[49]
Personal Communication with Mr.
A. Adamson, July 1989.
[50]
Real Estate News, 9 Dec. 1983,
D12.
GRACE CAWTHRA-ELLIOTT - List of Figures;
1. Grace Cawthra-Elliott at 87 with
cat, 27 Feb. 1965 - p. 55
2. The father of Grace in his prime
- p. 56
3. Grace and husband Harry - p. 57
4. Mr. and Mrs. Henry Cawthra, the
parents of Grace - p. 57
5. Grace and Harry, middle-aged in
the garden of Cawthra-Lotten - p. 57
6. Grace and Harry, older and next
to the house at Cawthra-Lotten - p. 57
7. Grace and Harry's tombstone at
Dixie Presbyterian Church Cemetery (Cawthra and
Dundas, Mississauga) - p. 58
8. Crescent Road house between Wrentham
Place and Lamport Avenue; house demolished May-June 1956 - p. 59
9. Yeadon Hall, occupied by Cawthras
1886-1919 - p. 59
10. The drawing room in 1894; Grace
would later decorate in much the same way - p.60
11. A 1903 garden party
by which Grace might also have been inspired
- p. 60
12. The place of Grace in the Family
Tree - p. 61
(A more complete Cawthra Family Tree
- p. 81)
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